You are inside the MET and enjoying your trip. You go from one department to another. You start to wonder how many items are in each department because you are the Egyptian Art section and you realize that you need more than one day to explore this section. You start to guess that Egypt might have the highest number of items in the MET. Okay, but what about other countries?
Well, you are right! Compared to other countries, Egypt was the country with most of the objects. Meanwhile, United States was in the second place of the chart. Iran takes the third place with most of the objects in the MET.
But wait! Now, you might be wondering how the MET keeps track of the origin of each item. Surely, it must be challenging for MET employees to document the details of every item over the years. Perhaps, in some cases, the location of certain items was never determined from the beginning. And you’re correct! The location of 93 items in the MET collection is uncertain, indicating that these items were recorded as being from two or three countries, or the experts were unsure about the specific country, providing multiple possibilities. For instance, some items are recorded as being from Afghanistan or Iran, and some are recorded as possibly from Syria. Additionally, there are items recorded as belonging to two countries, reflecting the historical changes in borders over the years. One last thing before you go, 40,840 items in the MET Collection have no country affiliation. Interesting, right!